Abstract

This article concerns the near total lack of artworks by Australia’s convict women that have come to light. First, I examine the reasons why convict women’s art was either not produced or not preserved, and then I offer a preliminary analysis of three textile artworks made by convict women in the mid-nineteenth century: the exceedingly well known Rajah Quilt (1841) and two less well known embroidery samplers from around the same time. In comparing these textiles, this article articulates the complex status of so much convict art regardless of its maker’s gender: its oscillation between a form of creative self-expression and an exercise in strict disciplinary reform and social conditioning from above. Yet, this article also shows how sexual difference inflected the life-worlds of female convicts and the textile art they produced, focusing on the gendered productive and reproductive forms of labour that were demanded of convict women in the penal colonies of Australia.

摘要

这篇文章关注的是几乎完全没有曝光的澳大利亚女囚犯的艺术作品。首先，我考察了女囚艺术没有被生产或保存的原因，然后我对 19 世纪中叶女囚制作的三件纺织艺术品进行了初步分析：非常著名的Rajah Quilt（1841 年）和两个不太知名的刺绣采样器，大约在同一时间。在比较这些纺织品时，这篇文章阐明了如此多的罪犯艺术的复杂状态，无论其创作者的性别如何：它在一种创造性的自我表达形式与严格的纪律改革和自上而下的社会调节之间摇摆不定。然而，这篇文章还展示了性别差异如何影响女性囚犯的生活世界和她们生产的纺织艺术，重点关注澳大利亚流放地的女性囚犯所要求的性别化生产和生殖劳动形式。